Shingle bundle wrapping equipment



g- 1961 H. c. JOHNSON ETAL 2,996,862

SHINGLE BUNDLE WRAPPING EQUIPMENT 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Aug. 26, 1959 Aug. 22, 1961 H. c. JOHNSON ETAI. 2,996,862

SHINGLE BUNDLE WRAPPING EQUIPMENT 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Aug. 26, 1959 ATTO RN EYS L INV NTORS Aug. 22, 1961 H. C. JOHNSON ET AL SHINGLE BUNDLE WRAPPING EQUIPMENT 4 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Aug. 26, 1959 E INVENTORS ATTORNEYS Aug. 22, 19 1 H. c. JOHNSON ET AL 2,996,862

SHINGLE BUNDLE WRAPPING EQUIPMENT Filed Aug. 26, 1959 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 INV TORS 44! c. M 92 M WM mfj Lz-J ATTQ R N EYS United States Patent 2,996,862 C Patented Aug- 22, 61

n SHINGLE BUNDLE WRAPPING EQUIPMENT Helge C. Johnson, West Chester, and Norman M. Roblnson, Parkesburg, Pa., assignors to Certain-Teed Products Corporation, Ardmore, Pa., a corporation of land Filed Aug. 26, 1959, Ser. No. 836,289 '1 Claim. (Cl. 53-228) This invention relates to equipment for packaging shingles and is particularly concerned with equipment which is designed to accept a previously stacked bundle of shingles and place a suitable wrapper around it for convenience in subsequent handling and shipping of the bundle. Although not necessarily limited thereto the present invention has been developed for use in association with the shingle handling machine disclosed and claimed in our copending application Serial No. 785,259, filed January 6, 1959. In fact, a portion of the machine therein illustrated is illustrated in the present application to show the manner in which the present invention can be associated with the earlier invention.

The principal objects of the present invention are to provide equipment for placing a wrapper around a previously collected bundle of shingles and to arrange for automatic operation of such equipment so as to deliver a suitable wrapper into a position for receiving a shingle bundle and then removing the bundle with the wrapper in place for subsequent tying followed by the delivery of another wrapper to the proper position for acceptance of another bundle. Heretofore the positioning of the wrapper and the moving of the bundle with the wrapper in place has been done by hand, which has restricted the capacity of the shingle bundling equipment to the human limitations of the workman on the job. Our invention avoids this limitation by rendering the wrapper placing mechanism entirely automatic so that the only limitation imposed upon the equipment is that which is inherent in the nature of the equipment itself.

A further object of the invention is to provide equipment of the character described in which the wrapper placing or delivery portion of the apparatus is constructed so as to be independent of the shingle bundling equipment whereby the bundling equipment can be used by itself with manual feeding of the wrappers if so desired. In other words, a plant may first employ the shingle bundling equipment alone and subsequently add thereto the wrapper delivering equipment if it develops that business justifies the additional investment. This also makes it possible for the user to remove the wrapper delivering portion of the equipment if breakdown occurs without necessarily idling the shingle bundling unit.

Another important object of the invention is to provide shingle wrapping equipment wherein wrappers of different widths or sizes can be readily accommodated by the making of simple adjustments in the positions of certain of the parts as will further appear.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a :control mechanism for the wrapper delivering equipment "which is under the control of the shingle stacking or bundling machine.

Other features of the invention involve the provision 0f a wrapper delivering machine which is capable of holding a reasonably large pile or supply of wrappers arranged one above the other together with means for removing the wrapper at the bottom of the pile while restraining the other wrappers and at the same time providing for suitable yielding holding means which maintains each wrapper in fiat position against the fioor over which it is to be moved to its bundle receiving position.

Another object of the invention includes the provi- 2 sion of suitable electrical control means whereby properly timed sequential operation of the wrapper delivery mechanism and removal of the shingle bundles with the wrapper in place is ensured.

How the foregoing objects together with such other objects as may appear hereinafter or are incident to our invention are attained is illustrated in preferred form in the accompanying drawings, wherein- FIGURE 1 is a longitudinal section taken substantially on the line 1--1 of FIGURE 2 illustrating the improvements of the present invention as associated with a shingle stacking or bundling machine such as shown in our copending application Serial No. 785,259, filed J anuary 6, 1959;

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of FIGURE 1 partly in section as indicated by the line 2-2 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is an enlarged fragmentary vertical section taken on the line 3- 3 of FIGURE 4;

FIGURE 4 is a cross section taken on the line 44 of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 5 is an enlarged sectional elevational view of a rack and pinion feed roll driving device employed in our machine, the view being taken as indicated by the line 55 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 6 is a plan section taken on the line 6--6 of FIGURE 5;

FIGURE 7 is an isometric view illustrating a bundle of shingles positioned in a wrapper as discharged from the machine; and

FIGURES 8 and 9 are schematic wiring diagrams of a suitable electric control system for the equipment.

As will be seen our equipment includes a supporting framework F having wheels 1 preferably adapted to run on rails 2 which rails are common to the shingle stacking or bundling machine S the discharge end only of which is shown in the present drawings. A bin B for holding a stack or pile of wrappers W is mounted on the framework F. This bin is constructed of a pair of spaced side plates 3 and 4 which are secured to the framework by angle irons 5 and bolts 6. These side plates are braced by transverse angle irons 7 and bolts 8. The front upright plate 8 extends from side plate to side plate and is secured in place by angle irons 10 and bolts 11. The spaced bottom plates '12 and 13 also extend from side plate to side plate and are secured to the transverse angle irons 7. The side plates, the front plate and the bottom plates define a stacking bin B for the wrappers and will be noted that this bin has an open back for ready insertion of the wrappers as required. By way of example only it can be said that the wrappers W can be made of corrugated cardboard or of any other material suitable for the purpose as may be desired.

We wish to point out at this point that the front plate 9, as seen to best advantage at FIGURE 3, does not extend all the way down to the bottom plate 12 so that an escape slot is provided above the plate 12 through which the wrappers can be removed in the manner to be described below. This escape s'lot can be of greater or less dimension as may be desired but only the wrapper at the bottom is permitted to pass out at any one time and this is provided for by means of the gauge plate '14 which is adjustably secured to the front plate 9 of the bin as shown in FIGURE 3. This gauge plate is preferably set so that its bottom edge is spaced from the bottom plate 12 a distance which is equal to approximately 1%. times the thickness of a wrapper. This will give good clearance for the wrapper being removed from the bottom of the pile while at the same time holding back the other wrappers. Incidentally it should be noted that the bottom plates 12 and 13 form a floor which is sloped slightly toward the escape slot.

A plurality of yieldable fingers 15 with upturned ends 3 16 are arranged across the escape slot the primary function of which is to hold the wrapper being fed or removed from the bin against the bottom plate 12. These fingers flare outwardly to permit the pile of wrappers to assume a slight slope across the width of the escape slot as shown in FIGURES 1 and 3.

In order to withdraw the bottom wrapper from the bin the following mechanism is provided.

Projecting upwardly through the space between the bottom plates 12 and 13 we arrange a wrapper-engaging means which takes the form of a feed roll 17 consisting of a shaft 18 having a plurality of spaced pulleys 19 secured thereon (see FIGURE 2) which pulleys are provided with suitable gripping surfaces as, for example, by facing them with what is known as claw-type belt material. This is indicated by the stippling shown in FIGURES 2 and 6.

The shaft 18 is journalled in bearing blocks 20 mounted on the angle supports 21 which in turn are secured to the side plates 3 and 4 by bolts 22. This feed roll is mounted approximately centrally of the space between the bottom plates 12 and 13 and the parts are so constructed and arranged as to bring the tops of the pulleys into firm frictional contact with the under surface of the lowermost wrapper in the bin.

The shaft 18 of the feed roll just described is extended at one side and carries near its end a driving pinion 23 adapted to engage the rack 24. The pinion 23 is mounted upon the shaft 18 by means of a free-wheeling clutch 25 of familiar construction (see FIGURE and the shaft vwith its pulleys will be turned in a counter-clockwise direction as viewed in FIGURES 1 and 5 when the rack 24 moves downwardly.

, The rack is moved by the fluid operated piston rod 26 which projects from the cylinder 27 (FIGURE 5) and the rack is secured to the piston rod by nuts 28 and is 'guided for reciprocation in a guideway 29 carried by the angle support 30. Operating fluid under pressure is admitted to the cylinder through a control valve 31 by a pipe line 3 2 leading in from a fluid pressure tank 33. The control valve 31 may be of any well known type and is actuated by a solenoid 34 to admit pressure fluid to the cylinder in order to move the piston downwardly as already described and is trip actuated to effect return .of the piston upwardly as will further appear.

i The shaft 18 with its pulleys 19 constitutes a wrapper engaging means which is adapted to initiate escape of the bottom wrapper through the escape slot.

7 Following initial movement of the wrapper by the mechanism just described it is gripped by a second wrapper withdrawing device by means of which its escape from the bin is completed and also by means of which it is delivered to the position where it is to receive the bundle of shingles. This mechanism will now be described.

This second wrapper withdrawing mechanism includes another feed roll 35 which is similar in construction to the first feed roll, i.e., it comprises a plurality of spaced claw-type belt faced pulleys 36 fixed on a shaft 37 journalled in bearing blocks 38 (FIGURE 2). This second feed roll 35 is positioned between the front edge of the bottom plate 12 and the rear edge 39 of the table plate 40. A plurality of fiat plates 41 secured to table plate 40 and located in the spaces between the pulleys 36 extend rearwardly under the bottom plate 12 to prevent any ,possibility of hookup of the wrapper being fed out from the bin. A spring urged nip roll 42 is mounted above the feed roll 35 to provide good feeding contact of the wrapper with the claw-faced feed pulleys 36 of this feed roll 35.

The second feed roll is continuously driven in a counter-clockwise direction by a speed reduction motor 43 and the speed imparted to the wrapper by this mechanism is preferably greater than the rate of feed imparted to the wrapper by the first feed roll 17 so that the wrapper is ,pulledout at a, rate of movement which is faster than 4 the speed imparted to the wrapper by the first feed roll. Under these circumstances, the first roll free-wheels by virtue of the clutch 25 in order to prevent wrapper drag. It should be noted also that when the second feed roll 35 is in full control of the movement of the wrapper the rack 24 will be moving upwardly thus reversing the direction of rotation of the pinion 23. However, due to the employment of the free-wheeling clutch, the pinion will free-wheel in this reverse rotation and thus will not impart reverse rotation to the first feed roll 17.

The speed of feed imparted by the second feed roll 35 is such that the wrapper being fed will shoot against the stop angles 44 which are adjustably secured by bolts 45 to the top table portion 46 of the fixed guide plate 47 of the pocket 48 into which the shingle bundle falls. The stop angles 44 are positioned so that the wrapper when in its delivered position rests centrally over the pocket defined by the guide plate 47 and the upright plate portion 49 of the table plate 40.

The wrapper feeding device is attached to the shingl bundling machine S by means of latches 50 pivotally mounted on the framework of the shingle bundling machine at the point 51 and having downwardly opened notches adapted to engage the latch pins 52. In the present embodiment the latches are provided with a pair of spaced notches 53 and 54. For the particular size of wrapper illustrated the inner notches 53 are engaged with the latch pins 52 but when wider wrappers are to be employed the outer notches 54 are engaged with the latch pins in order to space the wrapper feeding device from the shingle bundling machine the distance which is necessary to accommodate the wider wrappers. This necessitates adjustment of the stop angles 44 and the table plate 40. For example, let us assume that the notches 53 and 54 are spaced one inch apart and that the wrappers to be employed are two inches wider than the wrappings used with the settings shown in the drawings. Then, in order to have the wider wrappers lie centrally over the pocket 48 the frame F is moved to the right one inch to the position where notch 54 engages pin 52 and stop angles 44 are adjusted to the left one inch by means of the slot and bolt connection 45 and the table plate 40 is adjusted to the left one inch by means of the slot and bolt connection 55. These adjustments not only centralize the wrapper over the pocket 48 but also maintain the width of the pocket the same as before.

In connection with the wrappers and particularly where corrugated cardboards are used it will be noted from FIGURE 7 that they are provided with longitudinal scores 56 and 57 which are spaced apart a distance corresponding to the width of the shingles in the bundle, thus providing a corner break point, so to speak, when the shingle bundle drops down onto the table and from there on into the pocket 48. The discharged shingle bundle with its wrapper in place then has the sides of the wrapper turned up as it lands on the transverse belt conveyor 58 from which latter it is discharged to a suitable conveyor 59 (FIGURE 2) leading to a tying machine, not shown since it forms no part of the present invention.

The belt conveyor 58 is driven by a gear reduction motor 60 and the belts of the conveyor ride on rollers 61 in order to give support to the load.

At this point we would like to mention the fact that a standard corrugated cardboard wrapper will measure 25 /2" x 36" and these are scored for a 12" bottom section 3%" sides and 3" top lapping portions 62 (see FIGURE 7), the scoring between the sides and the top lapping portions being shown at 63 and 64. This is the type of wrapper for which the machine is illustrated. A wider wrapper may be 27 /2" x 36 and this size will be scored having 12" bottom, 3% sides but with a 4" top lap portion. Another familiar size is a cardboard scored for 12" bottom, 4%" sides and 3" top lap portions.

We will refer now to the shingle bundling machine 8 of which only a portion is shown in FIGURE 1 of the drawings because the bundling machine per se forms no part of the present invention. The details of this bundling machine are fully disclosed and claimed in our copending application already referred to. For the present disclosure, however, we wish to refer to the fact that the shingles are delivered by a conveyor 65 into a hopper 66 (FIGURE 1) where they rest on closed gate members 67 and accumulate into a shingle bundle 68 which bundle is composed of a pro-determined number of shingles in accordance with the invention set forth in the said application, after which the gates are tripped to open and discharge the bundle downwardly. The equipment of the present invention takes over at this point, the bundle falling against the wrapper W which has been placed across the pocket 48 in the manner shown in FIGURE 1. The scoring 56 and 57 corresponds to the distance between the sides 47 and 49 of the pocket and the bundle continues to drop into the pocket 48 with the sides of the wrapper assuming a vertical position against the walls of the pocket.

The solenoid '34 (FIGURE 5) is under the control of a switch 69 (FIGURE 1) which latter is actuated to closed position by an arm 70 of the left hand gate member 67 of the shingle bundling machine when the gates 67 swing downwardly to discharge a bundle of shingles. The manner of this control will now be described in connection with the schematic wiring diagrams of FIGURES 8 and 9.

Assume that a bundle of shingles 68 has just been completed, that a wrapper W has been positioned over the pocket 48 and that the main switch MS has been closed. When the shingle bundling machine S operates to cause the gates 67 to open and discharge the bundle 68 of shingles onto the wrapper W the sides of the wrapper will be folded upwardly against the sides of the shingle bundle and the bundle with its wrapper will fall down into the pocket 48 to rest upon the conveyor 58. Opening of the gates 67 causes the gate arm 70 (FIGURE 1) to close the switch 69 (FIGURES l and 8). This starts the timer 71 and closes the timer contacts 72. Closing of the contacts 72 starts the drive motor 60 of the transverse belt conveyor 58 thus discharging the delivered bundle to the conveyor 59. Starting of the timer also actuates a second set of timer contacts to close the contacts 73 and open contacts 74 (FIGURE 9), thus causing the condenser 75 to be charged.

When the timer times out, contacts 73 open and contacts 74 close to let the condenser 75 discharge through the solenoid 34 of the cylinder control valve 31. This, of course, energizes the solenoid and sets the valve to cause the piston to move the rack 24 in its down stroke thus rotating the first feed 'roll 17 in counter-clockwise direction to cause initial movement of the wrapper out of the supply bin and delivery to the second or gripping feed roll 35 which latter in turn will move the wrapper to its position over the pocket 48 where it is ready to receive the next bundle of shingles. In connection it should be noted that when the main switch MS was closed the drive motor 43 of the second feed roll 35 was started. Therefore, when the wrapper reaches this feed roll it is fed along in the manner already described until it engages the stop angles 44. It will be understood, of course, that the drive motor 43 and the second feed rolls 35 remain in constant operation once they have been started.

When the piston 26 reaches the end of its down stroke arm 77 (FIGURE 5) of a rod 78 connected to the piston rod 26 engages a lug 79 of the valve actuating rod 80 to move the valve 31 to the position where it causes the piston 26 and rack 24 to move upwardly with the pinion 23 free-wheeling on the clutch 25. This completes a cycle of operation and when the next bundle of shingles has accumulated on the gates 67 of the shingle bundling machine the cycle will be repeated when the gates fall to discharge the bundle into the wrapper and the arm again triggers the switch 69.

We claim:

In apparatus for wrapping shingles, the combination of an upwardly open pocket for receiving a dropped bun dle of shingles, a wrapper supply bin adjacent the pocket, said bin being adapted to contain a pile of wrappers, said shingle receiving pocket and said wrapper supply bin being mounted for relative movement toward and away from each other whereby the distance between them may be altered, a wrapper escape slot in the wall of the bin adjacent the pocket, an opening in the bin floor adapted to be straddled by the wrappers, wrapper engaging means projecting through said opening, means for actuating said wrapper engaging means to initiate escape of the bottom wrapper through said escape slot, wrapper withdrawing means mounted to grip the escaping wrapper and adapted to deliver it to lie across the pocket opening in position to embrace the shingle bundle as it drops into the pocket, whereby the wrapper sides are folded up against the bundle sides, a wrapper stop member at the side of the pocket away from the supply bin against which stop member the wrappers abut as they arrive from the supply bin, means for moving the stop member to alter the distance between it and the supply bin whereby to accommodate wrappers ot diflerent sizes, and a movable wall at the side of the pocket which is opposite to said stop member whereby the width of the pocket may be adjusted in relation to the distance between the pocket and the supply bin.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,262,383 Otarii et al. Apr. 9, 1918 1,377,841 Lev May 10, 1921 1,746,448 Van Buren Feb. 11, 1930 2,662,354 Vaughan Dec. 15, 1953 2,784,966 Roach Mar. 12, 1957 

